How to photograph a show - stills

[White-Light]

Yes thanks Renegade, sounds like good advice.

I'm going to give the Night Scene Portrait Mode ago as this is the closest to what you've suggested. The down side is the red eye reduction pre flash but the upside is that because of the fact its meant to capture background and the 2 flashes and the 1st being very weak, I have a long shutter exposure (probably around 1/2 a sec from what I can tell) and 2nd sync with the main flash so it probably will do the job. I'm going to have to experiment and try it though as being a compact, I have very little control beyond the programs or manual mode (which doesn't give a 2nd sync option)..

[Anthony]

rgb,

Renegade probably uses a DSLR with an external Speedlite flash.
He has alot of controlable parameters.
It isn't comparable with an compactcam.

I wonder how many "photographers" are on this forum.
It is always nice to see other people's "work"

www.hamond.nl

[Renegade Lumen]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys!

Yes, I do - used everything from compact cameras to hasselblads, and in truth, unless the thing in your and has a physical limitation that prevents you from doing what you want to do, it really doesn't matter what you are shooting... for the record my club stuff is shot on the following rig:

Canon Digital Rebel (a.k.a. 300D)
Canon 28-135
Sigma 18-200
Canon 580EXII
Diffuser sock (for shooting close up)
Better beamer / flash extender (for projecting the flash when shooting far away... it's amazing the shots you get when people don't know you are shooting)

The bottom line is that that's a very flexible club rig, and I suppose buying all of that would set someone back USD 1000 or thereabouts. It would be complete overkill unless you are a photographic type...

I do know that a lot of compacts/point-and-shoots do have manual modes, and do have ISO control. If yours doesn't, night shot should be about the best... just make sure the thing focuses properly in low light (one of the benefits of a hot-shoe flash is the Auto-focus assist beams).

I'd also suggest blocking the flash with a finger if you are standing in the middle of a cloud of haze to avoit that blowout effect, and also shoot the thing fully zoomed out if possible (the aperture is usually widest on the short side of a zoom lens and in night-shot mode the camera should be smart enough to use it)

You may also want to invest in a monster pod (or just borrow one for a while) so you can shoot those really long exposures.

And of course, I say all this not having a clue what your'e shooting so please take my advice with a pinch of salt.

[Pangolin]

This particular article is old, but might have some good information:
http://www.pangolin.com/resguide03c.htm